


Lessons Learned

by spaceysev



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Zutara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:49:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24398302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceysev/pseuds/spaceysev
Summary: It's ten lessons Katara has taught him, when it's all said and done, and it's those same ten lessons that bring him closer to his redemption. To his honor. To her. He finds his humanity in those lessons.And, Zuko thinks, he finds something else too.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 46





	1. Lesson One: Desire

She affords him his first taste of desire.

It isn’t intentional, not on his part, and certainly not on hers. He has no delusions about what she must think of him, and though he does not have the power to read minds, she has a habit of wearing her thoughts plainly on her face. He wonders if that ever gets her in trouble, then rolls his eyes, finding the answer to his question in the memory of the unabashed hatred she’d so readily hurled at him, never pausing to think for even a moment after the sinister consequences her disrespect might win.

An idiotic curiosity. That tendency had been his own, once upon a time, and was half the reason he now wore the abhorrent, disfiguring mark of shame and dishonor on his once smooth face.

It begins when he finds her necklace, so carelessly discarded in the aftermath of the earthbenders’ prison riot. It’s as he picks it up to examine it more closely, watching the way the rays of the fading sun catch and gleam against the carving of her element’s insignia that he feels the first stirring of something unfamiliar. He knows what he holds in his hands is a betrothal necklace, and has retained enough knowledge about Water Tribe customs from years of Uncle's tutelage to know she is not too young to have already been promised to another.

He wonders where her man might be, if this is the case; he’s only ever seen her with her brother and the Avatar, and he’s been sure not to give them any significant time to rest or rendezvous with others without great risk. He figures this means there are only two options — either it’s a coward she belongs to, or she remains captive only to her freedom, and wears the necklace for a different reason entirely.

Zuko does not know why it matters. He does not want to admit that it does. He does not even know her name.

But he hopes that it’s the latter.

“It was an ambush!” the warden insists, pleading for mercy that is not Zuko’s to grant. He is disgraced himself, after all, and has no say over the fate of this man. Something like that would fall under Zhao’s jurisdiction — or, Agni forbid, Azula’s. “The girl, she deceived us! And she had the avatar by her side! We couldn’t have—”

“I don’t want your excuses,” Zuko mutters, rubbing his thumb across the smooth blue of the stone before closing his fist around it. It’s cool to the touch, and reminiscent of moonlight. He wonders if, up close, the girl is the same. “Which way were they headed?”

He poses the question to Uncle Iroh later that night, and grimaces as he stumbles his way through trying to sound impartial. Subtlety has never been his strong suit, and he is mortified to be having this conversation, but he is still a boy, and he is not too proud to admit that there are things in his heart which remain beyond his understanding.

“I’m curious, Uncle,” he begins, brandishing the choker for his uncle to see. “What do you make of this?”

Where Zuko is not too proud to admit his ignorance, Uncle Iroh is not without enough grace to feign his own.

“The waterbender’s necklace,” he hums over a steaming cup of ginseng. There is an unmistakable glint of knowing in his gaze, one that comes far too soon. Neither of them acknowledges its presence. “A sight of beauty, and even lovelier up close than from afar. Don’t you think so, Nephew?”

A proper answer evades him, though it has nothing to do with whether or not he is in agreement and _everything_ to do with the fact that it’s been years since he’s devoted any spare effort to the consideration of beauty. He’s not sure he knows it anymore, or if he would even be able to recognize it, if in fact it were caught between his own fingers, and that’s not due to any fault of his own. Suffice it to say, the last few years of life had his priorities set along a strenuously particular path, and that path was not one of indulgence.

Instead of answering, he tries again, covering the tracks of his curiosity beneath the guise of princely strategy. “A betrothal necklace. Hers.” When his uncle remains silent and deigns to make him work for the knowledge he wishes to possess, he tries again, balling his free hand into a fist behind his back. “Where do you think the man who made it has wandered off to? It’s a dirty trick, but leverage is leverage.”

Iroh is not fooled, not that Zuko can tell. His uncle’s eyes peer right through him, and he’s forced to call upon his meditation techniques to keep from accidentally setting the scrap of blue silk in his hand aflame. “It is a beautiful jewel,” Iroh states, taking another long drag from his cup, “but an old one, as well. I don’t imagine the man who made it is the one that gifted it to her.”

And that’s all he needs to hear before he’s tucking the necklace away in his palm again, excusing himself from the mess hall and retreating to the solitude of his quarters. Its very presence keeps him from rest for the next few nights, demanding his attention as if it were a pocket siren. It sings in the silence of his room as he tries to ignore it and fall asleep, demands his consideration when the ship is docked and he is out hunting for his uncle. It offers him strength to assist in the defeat of the Earth Kingdom generals who had thought to take Iroh captive, and congratulates him for choosing his uncle over his search for the Avatar. The betrothal necklace, Zuko comes to realize, is a beacon of strength, and it lends more and more to him as he continues in his pursuit of the Avatar, of _her,_ following them all the way to Crescent Island on the day of the solstice. The glimpse he catches of her then is brief, and she pays him little mind, but he can feel the necklace calling out to her from where he’s got it hidden within his sleeve.

It’s selfish, but he’s glad she has neither the ability nor time to sense it. He has come to grow used to its smooth, cool weight rolling across his palms under cover of solitude and night, the ripple of ribbon possibly the first soft touch against his hands since the time he’d last held his mother’s. He is indebted to it for this, he knows, and figures he will find some way to repay it for the favors it has done him.

Of course, those thoughts come before he meets the pirates, who lead him forward beneath the light of the moon and directly to _her._ It’s the Avatar he’s really after, and he’s sure to repeat this over and over again in his mind like a mantra of sanity, but they are alone now, with each other, away from her brother and the last airbender and out of earshot of the pirates and his uncle. He has her up against a tree with no knowledge of when or if he ever will again, and the necklace is singing to him melodies too loud and wondrous to ignore.

He’s amazed the girl can’t hear it herself.

“Tell me where he is,” Zuko offers, “and I won’t hurt you or your brother.”

And he knows the words are true, where normally the promise would be nothing more than a shell, and he knows it’s because of the tether to her that he’s got hidden away in his clothes, as well as the countless thoughts said tether had pushed through his mind since first finding it in that wrecked prison yard. It made no sense to him that first night, as he confronted his uncle with his own juvenile confusion, and it still doesn’t, not really. They are natural born enemies, the simple bare essentials of their elements predetermining that they could not be allowed to harbor anything between the two of them but hatred and disdain.

But he is not cruel at heart, in the grand scheme of things, and the wonder of this girl and her pretty necklace has driven him half mad with something he does not have the ability to name or the humility to ask his uncle after.

“Go jump in the river,” she spits venomously. Zuko has never heard of anyone falling dead beneath a singular gaze, but he’s convinced that if it should ever come to pass, this girl will be the one responsible for it.

The necklace pulses insistently, prodding him to reevaluate, try another tactic. _She is of the Water Tribe,_ it seems to whisper to him, though not in any sort of voice he can recognize. _She is fluid and strong and will yield to no ultimatums._

“Try to understand,” he implores, moving closer and carrying the conversation on as if she were an old friend. He is again reminded that he does not even know her name. “I need to capture him to restore something I’ve lost. My honor.”

She squirms away from each attempt he makes at meeting her gaze with his own, and Zuko finds himself at a loss. He wants to _make_ her look at him, pay attention to him. He feels it is something that she owes him, for keeping her precious little gem safe over the last few weeks when he very easily could have tossed it over the side of his ship and let it sink to the bottom of the ocean. After the long, sleepless nights he’d endured on its account, suffering though countless visions of _her_ at his side, in his arms, in his bed—

Zuko shoves that away, burying it deep and low, some place he won’t be able to find until much later in the night, when he is once again alone, with no prying eyes to see his thoughts.

He knows now that it’s time to use it.

He lowers his voice to the pitch of honey, sidling closer to her from behind and leaving her no room to evade him on either side. “Perhaps in exchange,” he murmurs into her ear, just close enough to fan her skin with the heat of his breath, “I can restore something _you’ve_ lost.”

He feels ridiculous at first, with the pirates and his uncle watching, but it’s easy enough to pretend he isn’t bothered. He doesn’t have very much experience in the art of seduction, and he knows _that_ can’t be what _this_ is, but he doesn’t miss the faint hint of warmth coloring the waterbender’s cheeks or the way her fingers curl into fists where they’re bound. He doesn’t think much of himself as a general rule, but he knows that he’s attractive enough to find success in employing sweet nothings and shallow promises. He pulls the necklace from its hiding place, skin tingling upon first contact, and slowly levels it at her neck, waiting for realization to dawn on her.

“My mother’s necklace!” she cries, mouth popping into a perfect ‘o’ of disbelief. Zuko despises the sheer strength of the vindication dancing through his stomach. So there _isn't_ any man she belongs to, be it a coward or a warrior. Uncle Iroh had been right after all. “How did you get that?”

He’s loathe to do it, and loathe to _admit_ that he is, but he slinks away from her with the fluidity of an element that is not his own, tucking the necklace back to safety. He finds no relief outside the return of its weight to his pocket. “I didn’t _steal_ it, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Though he knows he isn’t above such actions, no matter how high a position in life he holds. He steps closer to her, undermining his own resolution to taunt and tease from afar, and as he does he thinks he sees the shift of desire in her stare. He wonders if she can see the twin of it reflected in his own. “Tell me where he is.”

She thinks about it, for a second, and beneath the light of the moon it’s plain to see. Even if Zuko weren’t watching her with such analytical appraisal, the pendant he’d just flashed at her would have alerted him to her hesitation. He sees her resolve buckle, pupils blown wide with adrenaline and uncertainty, and he can feel the exact moment he knows he has won. She wants to agree to it, to _him,_ to fold and bend beneath his wants and his will.

And he's willing to let her, too, provided she just say the words.

But then her face hardens, her fury roaring in his ears with the strength of the sea tides, and Zuko watches as the walls of her stubborn rage go soaring up into the sky, raising themselves to astronomical heights and using _his_ audacity to do it. “No!” she hisses, and Zuko feels the moment slip away like cool mist.

She escapes, of course, and the Avatar and her brother along with her. They make quick work of leaving him in the dust and laughing as they do, but he watches as she goes, and sees her peering back at him over her shoulder with no lack of depth of emotion in her gaze. He is not foolish enough to assume that emotion to be anything other than _hatred._

In the aftermath of his failed attempts at wooing or propositioning or seducing or _whatever_ it was meant to be, Zuko is left honorless, shipless, and without satisfaction.

But as he lies awake that night, the next, _and_ the one after, silently dangling the pretty blue ribbon of the waterbender’s _mother’s_ betrothal necklace over his face in privacy, he allows his mind to wander, and considers those same imaginings of _her._

At his side, in his arms.

In his bed.

Zuko figures as long as he does not give those desires an audible voice that he can easily ignore their presence.

He knows before he even finishes the thought that he is painfully wrong.


	2. Lesson Two: Restlessness

“Your _form,_ ” Uncle chides, and Zuko sees stars in spite of the fact that the sun is already high in the sky. “Remember your form! Where do you expect to draw strength from, standing like that?”

The pendant in his pocket thrums in in a nasty taunt and he is cursed with the knowledge that he is the only one on the ship who hears it. He grimaces and shifts the leg with the pocket housing the blue jewel in the opposite direction. Uncle can’t see it — no one can — but he’s not in the mood to leave it to chance.

“My form is _fine,_ _”_ he snaps, but Uncle only sighs and demands he run the drill again.

The necklace robs him of his sleep. It steals his peace of mind away with ease and effortlessly makes use of its oceanic melodies to torture him to restlessness, and the harder he tries to ignore its trill the stronger its ability to sap the energy from his veins grows. It knows, he thinks, that the waterbender has refused him her blessing. It knows, and his bending suffers for it.

Uncle is not easily moved to sharp tones, and this is how he knows his performance is especially poor. “Prince Zuko!” Iroh shouts, “ _where_ is your mind?”

He loses his step as he hears once again the siren call of the choker, and this forces his next bout of flames to shoot off at an improper angle. It’s in this moment he realizes Agni has forsaken him, and though he’s suspected this for years, it’s now that he makes the baby step to certainty.

The waterbender is not present to defend herself. Based on this alone his judgement can not be a fair one, but he is sick of suffering in his loneliness and he _knows_ this to be her doing. He knows, because when exhaustion finally comes to claim him it's _her_ face that he sees, leering at him beneath the protective blanket of a moonlit sky, and he is jolted into consciousness as soon as she opens her mouth. Zuko decides he wants to make _her_ suffer, too, and it's this decision that leads him to the guardrail of his ship with her wretched necklace clutched in his fist.

He uncurls his fingers and feels the weight of the jewel tempt the silk of the choker toward the ocean, whispering in his ears the gift of a solemn farewell. It drops precious few inches before he swears and hastily thrusts out a palm to catch it. Zuko pretends like his change of heart is not one borne of premeditation.

It’s the next day the bounty hunter comes. She manages to confront him with his own twisted desire, and she does it in under thirty seconds.

“What happened?” she drawls, eyes narrowing in nothing short of perfect clarity. Zuko does not know how it is that she can see, but he thinks it might have something to do with the way his fingers flinch against the necklace brandished between them. He tries his best not to let himself fall beneath its dominion. He tries, and he fails. “Your girlfriend run off on you?”

“It’s not the _girl_ I’m after,” he snaps, and he hurriedly schools his features beneath a mask that is easily constructed. It’s the same one he’s been making use of for the last two and a half years, the one carrying him through the duration of his exile. He uses it to disguise the truth, but does so in vain. There is not a single person in this present moment fooled. “It’s the bald monk she’s traveling with.”

It’s a lie, and it’s one that tastes plainly of disgrace, but he swallows it all the same.

“Whatever you say,” she waves off with a shrug, but Zuko can’t seem to shake the feeling that she’s laughing at him, with her kohl ringed eyes and her arrogant assumptions, and he knows what she’s imagining is something far more mundane than he has the luxury of being entitled to.

_Girlfriend._

He’s never wanted one before. He doesn’t want one now.

What he _does_ want is the Avatar in custody, and his little friend too. 

The bounty hunter practically makes him beg for her service and names an unreasonable sum for her payment, but eventually she is persuaded and she snatches the necklace from his grip to offer her beast a chance to learn the girl’s scent. He quietly wades his way through envying the thing 's ability and swallows more than his fair share of shame as he goes. If Uncle makes out any of this in his eyes, he never mentions it.

It’s a full day of tearing through the forest before they find her, and the journey is long enough to tempt Zuko’s mind to wander back to that night with the pirates and the tree trunk. He knows better than to fight it off; it’s a mistake he's made before, and it’s not one he’s especially eager to repeat, but he strikes a deal with the thought and convinces it to make a return later on in the night, when he will be able to afford it the attention it’s owed.

“So _this_ is your girlfriend,” the bounty hunter jeers once they have her and her brother cornered, but Zuko pays her words little mind. He is already sliding off the back of the shirshu and stalking forward with venomous haste. “No wonder she left. She’s way too pretty for you.”

It’s not anything he doesn’t already know, but it sets his jaw in anger all the same.

“Where is he?” Zuko demands, pinning the waterbender in place with his stare. The necklace hums to her an eager greeting, but he does not allow it to slow him down. “ _Where_ is the Avatar?”

He should already have moved on. Dwelling, he knows, seldom does more good than harm, and he is so tired of being touched by the latter, but there are unfamiliar wounds in his soul, deep ones, that he is working his way around healing, and _she_ is the one responsible. He prepares to be struck with water or ice or any variation of her element that she can grasp in a crisis, but it never comes. She cowers back in fear, and the vision is _so at odds_ with the memory he has of her that Zuko nearly chooses mercy.

Nearly.

He almost forgets about her loud mouthed brother until he comes to her defense, denying Zuko the power to crack the girl beneath the weight of his gaze by shielding her body with his own. It’s jarring, Zuko notes, how similar the blues of their eyes are, and the display of brotherly affection is enough to give him pause but _not_ enough to halt him.

“We split up!” the Water Tribe boy spits, fingers searching for a weapon that he does not have. Even in his defenselessness, he does not wilt to Zuko’s aggression, the safety of his sister taking precedence over anything and everything else. It’s something the banished prince thinks he admires. “He’s long gone!”

So he takes the two of them instead.

He places her brother’s paralyzed body on the shirshu’s back as he faces a barrage of insults that do little to discourage him. When he leaves the boy in the company of his uncle and the bounty hunter to go and collect his sister, Zuko finds that they are again alone for the second time in a phenomenally miniscule period, and hates how his heart leaps in giddiness at the realization.

“Need a hand?” he taunts, but it’s free of the malice he intends to make use of. He doesn’t know where it wanders off to until he hears her speak.

“I don’t need _anything_ from you,” she hisses, and Zuko sees. She hides her ferocity behind a mask of her own, disguising her warrior with the costume of a young, helpless girl. It’s a neat trick. A wise one. He wonders from whom she hides the truth as he hoists her into his arms to set her down at her brother’s side, and it is so not by the grace of her temporary paralysis that she does not kick and writhe the entire way through.

It is not until much later, after she has escaped once again with her brother and the Avatar in tow that Zuko realizes he is missing what little of a claim he has to her. He notices when he’s stomping his way back to his quarters, the bounty hunter and her excessive payment discarded on the sea bank, that the maddening melodies he’s grown so accustomed to have gone silent, and he proves his suspicions right when he slams his door shut and shoved a fist into his pocket. The necklace is gone. The girl is gone. He retains enough sense to join two and two together.

He writes it off as he heads to his bed and pretends that no bond was ever forged between himself and that ridiculous little pendant. It is no longer his cross to bear, no longer his burden to carry, and if its absence allows him to finally make progress with his studies and his bending then surely it is actually a blessing in disguise. He sends a prayer of thanks to Agni, rescinding with it his own selfless damnation, and hastily seeks the bliss of unconsciousness.

For the first time in weeks Zuko successfully sleeps through the night.

And still, peace evades him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little different of a feel with this one, but I want every lesson Zuko goes through to be distinct and unique! Next one is one of my favorites! Until then!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I hope you enjoyed this first chapter of my story! I've loved Zutara since I was a little girl, and I think I'm finally ready to write for it, so I'm super excited! IF you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them my way! I'll see y'all next chapter!


End file.
